American composer Edward Alexander MacDowell (1860-1908) was a virtuoso pianist and an intellectual with a wide range of interests. Fiercely proud of his Scots Protestant ancestry, he changed his family name from McDowell to MacDowell, as at the time of his great-grandfather. The rest of his family, including his parents, seemingly all did the same.

His wife honored his memory by means of an artists' colony which still exists. Edward Arlington Robinson, Thornton Wilder, Mrs. H. H. A. Beach, Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson, Leonard Bernstein, Doris Grumbach, Louise Talma, Roy Harris, and others all participated in its programs and services.

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